Critical Citizenship
The notion of citizenship and citizenship education are floating signifiers (Sant, 2019), with multiple--and sometimes competing--understandings of democracy. We frame our definition of citizenship within justice oriented theorizations (Westheimer & Kahne, 2004) which center a critical approach. Citizenship, often defined by whiteness, is historically understood as a legal status to a nation-state that protects “certain rights, privileges, and freedoms” (Vickery, 2017, p. 318). Justice oriented citizens actively work to identify systems of oppression and dismantle them (Westheimer & Kahne, 2004), ultimately building new and equitable institutions to work toward a more robust democracy. Critical citizenship deepens this definition, grounding it in the work of critical scholars of color who challenge traditionally white understandings of citizenship. These scholars center narratives of Black and Indigeonous people and call for collective acts of resistance (e.g. Busey & Dowie-Chin, 2021; Rodríguez & Vickery, 2020; Sabzalian, 2019; Vickery, 2017).